[233] 



ered a gre;U delicacy. The skins have been sent to the 

 tanner; so we are eating their flesh, dressing in their fleece, 

 and being shod in morocco, with the prospect of gay car- 

 pets and kid gloves in the near future not French kid, or 

 rat skin, but genuine Tennessee kid. 



The Cumberland Mountains, or Table-lands, are some- 

 thing over one hundred miles long, and have an average 

 width of forty miles, interspersed here and there with small 

 valleys and coves of great fertility. Such lands, with some 

 improvements, are worth from eight to ten dollars per acre ; 

 but the mountain proper can be bought at from fifty cents 

 to one dollar and a half per acre. It has an elevation suf- 

 ficient to temper the heat of summer, and then it is far 

 enough south to give us short and mild winters, and is 

 proverbially one of the healthiest countries in the United 

 States. I have sometimes thought that if some of the peo- 

 ple about New York, and perhaps in other places, that are 

 complaining of hard times, and find it difficult to meet city 

 expenses, were here, with a flock of goats, they might be 

 well fed, well dressed, and well shod, for goat meat can be 

 raised inside of one Gent a pound, to say nothing of their 

 fleece and skins, both of which can be worked upon shares. 

 Then, you see, they might dismiss the currency question, 

 and let monopolists and bank panics go to the dogs. 



LETTER OF MR. JOSEPH PHILIPS. 



Mr. Joseph Philips, of Davidson county has been very suc- 

 cessful in raising Angoras, and he has kindly consented to 

 give the State the benefit of his experience in goat raising. 

 But it is better that he should speak for himself, which he 

 does as follows : 



Though the Angora goat is the last contribution of the 

 animal kingdom to the manufacturing and art industries of 

 the world, it nevertheless has occupied a place in the primi- 

 tive industries and necessities of the nomadic tribes of Cen- 



